Southwestern Manitoba regional health authority planning to open daycare to help recruit, retain staff

Southwestern Manitoba's regional health authority is planning to build a daycare with up to 150 spots for the general public and the health authority's employees, in what it says is an effort to boost staff recruitment and retention.

The proposed daycare, the first run by Prairie Mountain Health, is expected to be built near the Brandon Regional Health Centre, says chief financial officer Dan McGregor.

Child-care availability is often a concern during the recruiting process, which spurred the health authority to act, McGregor said.

"We didn't want that to be a barrier," he said. "If there is something that we can do to alleviate that concern ... that would help us."

Construction on the Prairie Mountain Health daycare is expected to begin by 2026 if all grant requirements are met.

There's a need for better access to affordable daycares near where people work, says Kyle Ross, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union, which represents health-care workers in a range of areas.

Building a daycare would be a step in the right direction to help get and keep staff in Brandon, said Ross, but competitive wages are also needed.

According to a report released by MGEU in July, more than 30 per cent of health-care aide jobs in the Prairie Mountain region are unfilled. The vacancy rate is upwards of 40 per cent in 16 of the health region's facilities. 

According to 2021 Statistics Canada data, there are 6,700 children under the age of nine in Brandon. But data from the Our Brandon community indicator system says there are just over 1,000 child-care spaces in the city.

'Child-care desert'

It's unusual to see a major employer like Prairie Mountain Health take on developing a daycare, says Susan Prentice, a sociology professor at the University of Manitoba. But she thinks the health authority has to take action on its own to address a failure of public policy.

Child-care facilities are not being developed where and when they are needed, she said, forcing organizations like Prairie Mountain Health, "to step outside their …comfort zone and skill set to try and provide what's necessary."

Most Manitobans live in what's referred to as a "child-care desert," she said — defined as an area where there are more than three children for every licensed child-care space. 

Across the province, there are child-care spaces for fewer than one in five children, she said.

"While there have been some baby steps towards expansion, the latest data we have on parents still is that on average, they'll wait at least 15 months for a child-care space," she said.

"It is a pressing health crisis and certainly one for the health sector to pick up … because it's heavily female-dominated," said Prentice.

"A lot of work-family balance falls on women, and when you don't have child care for working women in health care, you will see retention and recruitment shortages."

'Great opportunity' for Brandon: CFO

Prairie Mountain Health's CFO says the health region began exploring the idea of opening a daycare about a year ago.

It already owned land northeast of the Brandon Regional Health Centre that had been purchased over a period of years as it became available, said McGregor, and learned funding is available to build new infant and preschool spaces under the federal-provincial child-care funding agreement.

The cost of the daycare project hasn't been set, but he expects it will be more than $1 million depending on the daycare's final size.

Once it's completed, Prairie Mountain Health will look for an organization to partner with to operate the facility, McGregor said.

"We're very optimistic that this is a great opportunity to meet the needs at Prairie Mountain Health, but also the community in Brandon, and hopefully this will be a good addition to the land that we have," he said.